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Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Midweek Update

We lead with an obituary of a person who had great influence on global society, operating behind the scenes, and move to some commentary motivated by current events. 

Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
He was honored in many ways, including the British knighthood, Grammys, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but above any others, there was the unofficial title of "the fifth Beatle".  There are others, such as their first manager, Brian Epstein, or the drummer who preceded Ringo Starr in the group, who have been named so, but he truly deserved it. George Martin's record production revolutionized the popular music industry, using superior recording technique, his classical music training, and by helping the rock group experiment with new instrumentation, clever arrangements, and mixing rock 'n' roll instruments with all kinds of sounds.

Martin worked with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison to help them turn their songwriting into the best recordings possible.  They recognized Martin's contributions, and his efforts helped change the Beatles from "just a pop group" to the world-changing artists that we remember.

Martin did a lot of other good work with other groups afterwards, and even recorded instrumental pieces and movie soundtracks under his own name.  My family and I recall with "Love" the musical by that name that he put together, from original Beatles recordings, released and unreleased, which we saw performed in Las Vegas by Cirque du Soleil.

McCartney described him as a "true gentlemen", a man whose behavior just added to the respect due to the Beatles and their groundbreaking recordings.  Martin died today, at the age of 90.

Act II, Scene 3 (continued)- From Super Tuesday to Winner-Take-All
Super Tuesday didn't provide many surprises or too much drama (if one doesn't get too worked up about who finishes second in Republican primaries); the most significant close race was Hillary Clinton's narrow win over Bernie Sanders in Massachusetts.   On the other hand, last night produced some significant, unexpected drama, with the upset victory of Bernie Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary.  His two-point victory defied all the polls leading up to the voting, which had an average lead for Clinton of 13%, and which Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com gave Clinton a 99+% of winning.  Here are some takeaways from that shocker:

  • Sanders showed the ability to produce huge turnout in the college towns, and, from exit poll data, dominated the votes of independents participating in this open primary (no party registration required).  Clinton's campaign must counter with comparable turnout efforts in any competitive primaries, while the vote of independents is a long-term issue which could be decisive in the general election. 
  • Polls have sometimes been good in these early primaries, sometimes not (and in most of the caucus states, hardly present).  There are real issues about developing statistically valid samples properly representing the share of voters who do not have land lines, and the percentage of phone responders willing to take these surveys continues to drop (if you've ever done one, you would know what an irritant it can be).  And you can discount heavily any polls developed online. 
  • Michigan's primary once again defied predictions or reasonable expectations. I will remind the reader that George Wallace won its Democratic primary in 1972, and there are other historic examples of the state producing these surprise results (Henry Ford won the primary there vs. Woodrow Wilson in 1916); however, Michigan has been more predictable in general elections, going consistently (if narrowly) Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992. 
  • Despite the narrow victory in Michigan, Clinton actually won more delegates than Sanders because of her enormous victory margin in Mississippi, and thus added to her substantial lead in elected, pledged delegates (not even counting that huge one in unelected superdelegates).   What Michigan did for Sanders was keep his contest legitimate for at least another month. 
  • At this point, I should admit that he has done much better generally than I expected, particularly due to his success in caucuses in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.  Prairie Populism, indeed, from a Yankee Jew from Brooklyn!
It's good to have such a dramatic moment to rekindle interest in the Democratic race.  In my view, Sanders has already won, putting his selected issues front-and-center onto the table for Democrats, noticeably moving Clinton's positions toward his, and showing once again that People Power can be translated into meaningful results on the natonal stage.  I am certain that Sanders never expected to win the nomination when he entered this race, but he found, to his surprise, that there was more of an audience for his message, more broadly, than he suspected. Which is not to say that he has much of a chance to win the nomination, still; predictit.org has it at 18% tonight, up from 10% after Super Tuesday.

In other Scene 3 developments, the threat of a third New York multi-millionaire in the general election, after Trump and Clinton, receded a bit in these days when former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided not to file.  The relevant facts at the time were that his entering would play into he hands of Trump or Cruz, and that the Clinton's likely ultimate nomination would give him a candidate he could get behind.

Is There Still Hope to Stop Trump? 
Well, there's hope, but not much substance to the effort.  Marco Rubio joins a long list of candidates who dared to take on The Donald and whose carcasses lie by the side of the road.  Rubio's descent into mud-wrestling was particularly humiliating.  Rubio's candidacy is not officially dead yet, but it depends entirely on his being able to pull off what now appears to be an upset victory in his home state.  If he could win Florida--a winner-take-all primary next week--he would be able to go forward, raise more money (he is spending huge amounts this week, in Florida, and, I can testify, in Illinois), and make the math for Trump getting the delegates to get a first-ballot nomination much more difficult.

The general expectation now is that he will fail in Florida and drop out.  John Kasich--the last, best hope of reasonable Republicanism--will face a similar challenge in Ohio the same night.  His odds of winning on his home turf, and of winning all the state's delegates, are a lot better, but he is even further behind the pace, not having won a single state's primary or caucus so far.   His support has been weak in most of the primaries, though improving some since the field has gotten smaller.

Ted Cruz' argument that he is the only one who can stop Trump, and that Rubio and Kasich should get out of the way, is founded in facts but doesn't pass the smell test.  He has won several states, ones with sufficiently large hardcore conservative voters, but not all of such states.  Trump has trounced him in states with large populations (except his home state of Texas), and especially those with open primaries, due to Trump's own strength with independents.   Cruz' argument of being an authentic, reliable conservative, and its corollary, that Trump is an unreliable one, may be correct but it won't make him a good bet to win the nomination, and it would make him a worse general election candidate.  That doesn't matter too much to me, but it should for Republican regulars.  My suggestion to voters in Florida or Ohio is to vote for the home state guy--Rubio or Kasich--no matter what party or Presidential candidate you prefer--as long as its not Trump or Cruz.

The Supreme Court Nomination
In a few days, President Obama will fulfill his constitutional duty, showing an amazing lack of regard for my advice to him (snark), and nominate someone to take the seat and robe of the Supreme Court which was filled by Antonin Scalia.  My thinking was that the Republican Senate majority in this Congress would never confirm an Obama nomination to take the place of Scalia and his hard-right Constitutional interpretation.

I'm sure my belief was correct, but other considerations will hold sway.  The Republican candidates, and their Senators, headed by Majority Leader McConnell, were so unseemly quick in announcing that no Obama nomination should even be considered, that the natural reaction to such extremism was to challenge it.  Clearly, there is some political advantage for the Democrats if they can, once again, make the Republicans in Congress look unreasonable and obstructionist.  It has worked before.

Based on the rumors, there have been a number of candidates apparently being considered, all of whom meet Obama's announced criteria of being fully qualified, confirmable by a Republican Senate, and having some kind of real-world understanding and experience (that is, beyond the academic and judiciary experience).  Tactical considerations may enter the selection:  one candidate from Iowa would put Judiciary Chairman Grassley in a tough spot.  Grassley, who has a fairly strong challenger for re-election in Iowa this year, would be under pressure to allow her to have hearings, though he has already announced that, though she may be qualified, he has pledged not to allow it.  Another candidate might add Asian-Americans to the list of majority groups the Republicans have permanently alienated.  Women and African-Americans figure prominently among the candidates. In the desire to actually get someone who would be approved, or at least seriously considered, there was consideration even for a Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, before he took himself out of the running.

At the end of the deliberations, I have no doubt Obama will do the right thing, nominate someone very qualified, with absolutely no chance of being confirmed--unless it is by the next Senate, which is becoming ever more likely to be controlled by the Democrats.  That appears to be the real point of the political confrontation which will follow his announcement, and the battle for control of the Senate is due to be the subject for my next political blogpost.

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Post-Pre- and Pre-: Stuff

Oscars Post-Mortem
I didn't follow my advice with the Oscars telecast; I watched it all. The most dramatic moment was Lady Gaga's song for survivors of sexual abuse, "Until It Happens to You"--which, surprisingly and disappointingly, did not win the award for best song (the winning song was an unspeakably sappy Sam Smith one). Chris Rock did the expected and skewered the Academy for the expression of its subtle racism in the absence of nominees for persons of color; he did it in ways both "kidding on the square" and outright humorous (the best was his interviews with filmgoers in Compton, none of whom had seen the movies nominated for the major awards).

As for the results, I hit a couple of the upsets--that of Mark Rylance for Supporting Actor and that "Revenant" might not be a sure thing for Best Picture (though I would've picked "The Big Short" rather than "Spotlight"). The predictwise.com bettors' picks would not have made much money if you had bet with them, as most of their winning picks were odds-on favorites, but they would have helped with your local pool. They had 17 of 24 correct, with three of the misses being in the random "Shorts" categories. In particular, they previewed correctly the sweep of many of the technical categories by the "Mad Max" movie; in that regard, the biggest surprise was the miss on the Visual Effects award--they had the "Star Wars" movie winning, over "Mad Max", but the winner was the (generally unviewed) artificial intelligence sci-fi pic "Ex Machina", which featured Alicia Vikander as the living robot--the same person who won for Supporting Actress in "Carol" (one that I missed).
Dump Drumpf Update
It seems, finally, that the effort to stop Donald Trump (or "Drumpf", as John Oliver recently disclosed Trump's original family name to be) is getting some traction.  And, it's not a moment too soon.  As I identified several months ago (back in September, though I had the principal antagonists wrong), if Trump takes the winner-take-all primary in Florida on March 15 (and the one in Ohio the same day), it will essentially be all over.

Last night's results showed that the latest affronts to common decency by Trump may have eroded his momentum--in the last, disastrously juvenile Republican debate, in his equivocating response to Klansman David Duke's support for his candidacy, or possibly as a result of sustained takedown attempts from Oliver, from 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, and others.  The benefit, at least last night, accrued to Ted Cruz, as he won caucuses in Kansas and Maine, and performed well above expectation in primaries in Louisiana and Kentucky.  The Maine result was the most surprising--Trump dismissed it with a good quip and dig at Cruz' citizenship status, that it was "because it's so close to Canada"--as he showed, for the first time, the ability to win outside of states bordering on Texas.  Cruz called for the other contenders in the race, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, to get out and let him--Cruz--take on Trump mano a mano.  Trump, also, suggested Rubio was toast and should get out, as he also longs for the singular showdown with Cruz.

Rubio and Kasich, understandably, are not taking their campaign advice from their rivals.  They will aim to win their respective home states' primaries on Mar. 15--they will be must-wins to sustain their candidacies--and to show some momentum for their own campaigns in the meantime.   Rubio will be looking for his second primary victory today in Puerto Rico, and Kasich is promising some improved result in Michigan on Tuesday.  They show some sign of understanding that the best chance to stop Trump is to split delegate allotments three or four ways, each of Trump's rivals focusing his efforts in the states where good results are most likely, and thereby keeping him from getting an absolute majority of delegates going into the party's convention.

Cruz, on the other hand, does not seem to be a party to the understanding.  To reinforce his anti-Rubio argument, he shows signs of making an effort to compete in Florida.  In doing so, he risks becoming defamed as the "Nader" of the Republicans' nomination campaign:  if his efforts, which are extremely unlikely to win the state's delegates, spoil Rubio's hopes to do so, it would knock Rubio out, but also make Trump's mathematical chances much more favorable.  Rubio's having a hard enough time in Florida as it is.  Ted may also try to "Cruz-ify" Kasich in Ohio with a similar, ultimately self-defeating strategy, one which is very much in keeping with his egomaniacal, antisocial nature.

Below is a screen scrape from predictit.org this morning, showing the status of a few of the headline markets, and applying my son's "Drumpfinator" software that he downloaded from John Oliver's website (it magically substitutes "Drumpf" for "Trump" anywhere it appears on your computer's screen)  Some of the formatting may be lost, but you may be able to click on the panels and link through to the original pages (which address, clockwise from the top left, the top two choices for Democratic nomination, Republican nomination, 2016 Presidential election winner, Michigan Democratic primary, Michigan Republican primary, and for the Maine Democratic caucuses, to be held tonight).

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